I Swear!

You know how every epoch in your life comes with a swear word? Back in middle school, it used to be 'idiot.' This slur on my intellectual personality reduced my sixth-grade self to tears every single time. Then we discovered 'fuck' in senior school, with some of us discovering it literally, while the rest of us non-promiscuous souls took our own sweet time understanding why such a pleasant-sounding easy-to-say widdle-wordlum was abhorred so.

The first swear word I liked, related to, used with abandon, and knew could be used on me with great honesty was - wait for it, not that there's any surprise - bitch, a word that trended with some modicum of success in college where I studied with - shudder - women. Emerging from that hornet's nest of viciousness, I entered Google where, to my dismay, I've recently noticed an alarming trend amongst the (near-extinct) male segment here to call me 'dumbo.'

Now, Smruthi will bear testament to the fact that I've put on a rather shocking amount of weight lately, but nonetheless, to be addressed by the name given to an animated ELEPHANT is really a bit much. Nor, in case it isn't sufficiently obvious, do I discuss cartoon-like things with aforementioned male species, unless we're discussing manga of the adult variety. So I figured the childishness must all be from the males' side - a thought which makes sense given I've been babysitting little Googlees a lot lately. But then the thought thunk some more as so many thoughts will and I thinkeded that one balding old man here also calls me 'dumbo' and by no stretch of imagination can balding old men and little Googlees be categorized into the same species.

However, if one were to plot a Venn diagram - not that I still get the point of drawing intersecting boobage but mathematicians must have their hoohaas - what unites the bratty Googlees with the old sottai* is - they all come from Chennai! Now let's go back to Chennai, the land of my - not birth, but the land of my growth - which was repressed somewhat severely by the TamBram forces, who unitedly chant Abacharam-Abacharam at any bad word harsher than (cover your ears now Googlees and the likewise-sized) STUPID. Yes, in Chennai where my heart is, STUPID is a bad word. You can only use it if someone puts dynamite up your arse without saying please first AND lights the flame AND you die. That's right, when you're dead, you're allowed to say 'stupid.' But sparingly 'cos God's watching. Oh, I'm going to hell. Never mind that.

So then just as my Venn boobies were bouncing in content glee, I realized there was an unnecessary lump in the mix - one more buggerance calls me dumbo (remember Puneet? my Cuttack husband who's going to die and provide me funding for my paani puri stall?) and he's from (as I mentioned in the earlier paranthesis) CUTTACK not CHENNAI. Now Cuttack and Chennai have similar weather, and what's interesting is, nearly EVERY place that starts with a C (in India, duh) has similar weather. So, every C-City has men who believe 'dumbo' is a legitimite swear word.

Doesn't it all make sense? That's why Calcutta is now Kolkata - 'cos Bengali men HAD to swear 'cos they're narrow-minded bigoted chauvinists whom even my overtly masochist soul cannot condone. I can't believe I haven't made a Mallu joke in this post yet. Oh wait, Venn boobies.